9/11

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“Our envy of others devours us most of all. Rub your eyes and purify your heart and prize above all else those in the world who love you and wish you well. Do not hurt them or scold them, and never part from them in anger”

– Alexander Solzhenitsyn

In my journal on Sept 16th I wrote those words as they seemed to help cope with those tragic events of September 11th, 2001. I find the Russian writers heavy hand a good way of dealing with life’s lower points. I cannot add much to a day that so many of us experienced in so many ways. This is just an account of my day, which was just another day in which I was going to work at Microsoft.

The morning started like so many. I had two young boys at the time. One was 2 and the other was nearly 6 months old. I woke up with the oldest and my wife soon followed with the youngest. He was hungry so she fed like many mothers do, child to breast. It was Tuesday and I had to go to work. It was also the day my parents took care of my older son. Luckily my parents lived not more than 2 minutes from the Microsoft campus so it was convenient. That day I was attending an internal conference at the new conference center on campus.

Before I went to work I needed to fill up my 1994 four-wheel drive Ford Ranger with gas. I was dressed and ready to go so I took my two-year old and we hopped into the Ford Ranger and drove over to Costco to fill up the truck. As usual I was listening to Fisher and West on 103.7 the Mountain. They were playing music and providing traffic updates. A small news item was about a small aircraft that had hit the World Trade Center. As we drove and Fisher and West spoke we neared Costco. It was then Fisher said, “another plane has hit the World Trade Center”. As Fisher and West continued to talk Fisher abruptly said, “I have got to leave for a second and check this out”. It was at that moment I knew this was no accident. These two DJ’s had been on the air for a long time and were true professionals, for Fisher to suddenly leave on air for a moment to watch the television told me something was not right in the world.

I filled up the truck and raced home as the news was starting to filter in that a United Airlines Jet had hit the World Trade Center and it was believed the first plane was a jet as well. I got home jumped out of the truck, ran round to the other side and pulled my two-year old out the passenger door of the truck and raced into the house. As I launched myself through the door I put my two-year old down and raced into the living room. My wife heard me and saw me running to the television and was asking, “what’s going on?”. I replied, “A plane hit the world trade center”. Then I turned on the television to Channel Five and the Today show. And then there it was, a Boeing 767 flying directly into the World Trade Center. Before our eyes, as a look of horror overcame our faces, we had just watched at least 300 and probably more people die. Fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters would not be coming again, ever.

As we watched the news reports we had to get ready for the day. I got my son in the truck and we drove off to Redmond. As I drove south on I-5 and then merged west bound onto 520 the reports were streaming across the radio. Many reports were unconfirmed. Car bombs in Washington DC, planes hi-jacked but how many? The reports kept coming in. What was happening was our entire nation had become unsettled and no-one, not even the “freedom of the press” knew what was going on. It was a moment unlike any in US history.

When I got to my parents they of course were watching. I asked them not to watch TV as I did not want my son watching, since he was at that age where he was beginning to take in and absorb everything he saw. This was one event I did not want him to absorb. For the first time in fatherhood I found myself saying that old cliché, “he is only a child”. It just was not so cliché anymore. With that I said my goodbye’s and I got back in my Ford Ranger and drove off to the Microsoft conference center.

When I got to the conference center I walked in to the new facility with its new rooms and tables set with breakfast items. I walked into room we were scheduled to be in which was a large room that held around 100 people with a big movie size video screen. But rather than Powerpoint’s today we had the news on and the site of the World trade Center’s twin towers on fire. People from offices all over Microsoft North America. It was to discuss some new Partner Programs as far as I remembered, but who cared. It was a dazed audience as we just all sat and stared at the big screen . It was as if no one was comprehending what was going on. We just watched. Then at 9:59 am the South Tower fell. There were screams in the audience. We were so far removed yet so close. Who could do such a thing? Why? We sat another 30 minutes until 10:28 when the North Tower fell. The screams and yell came again and then it was over. What had started as a quite morning had produced a horror that no one could envision.

After the North Tower fell news began to filter in. The skies were closed. Anyone who had a flight out of Seattle would not be going home anytime soon. When I went out into the hall people were already in planning mode. I heard of some guys from Detroit who had rented a car and were driving home. Confusion was everywhere. I was just in a daze. I went back into the room and it was apparent the people who had organized the meeting were trying to figure out what to do. At 11:30 they decided to move forward with the presentations. They started and I listened and watched. Some people were actually engaged and asking questions. I couldn’t. The event was just too great for to me and many people in the audience to ignore. I thought it was a poor decision and around noon I just left and decided to go home.

I left and went to pick up my son a couple of miles away at my parents house. As I left for the drive home my mind was filled with anger and confusion over the events that I had seen that day. Even though the day was only half over I was tired. As I drove over the 520 bridge on Lake Washington and saw Seattle before me I realized how beautiful the day was. It was similar to New York in that regard. The sky was clear blue and the water on the lake was very calm and soothing. It seemed like the flames of hell were in my mind but the beauty of my hometown was captivating and I could not reconcile the two. I crossed the bridge and decided to go to the church where I was married, Blessed Sacrament. I needed peace. I needed to turn the radio off. I needed to turn the TV off. I needed to turn the media off.

To my surprise when I got there and went into the parish. My son and I were the only two people there. I sat in thepews and bowed my head. Looking. Searching. Trying to understand and find reason in a world I did not understand anymore. My son was jumping and running around the pews in a joyful kind of play. It was a paradoxical sort of moment, that maybe only a child could provide. In its own way it was as real as life could be. I went home and the rest of the day has fallen from memory. Probably because I turned the TV on. The one thing I remember is the sky was quiet, except for the occasional fighter jet that flew over head. It was frightening.

In the coming days many acts of heroism would come to light and there were people at Microsoft who did their part. Kim Daley the GM for the Microsoft Ney York office did her part in working with Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s office. I knew Kim having worked with her before, she was a very hard working dedicated Microsoft employee and it did not surprise me she rose to the occasion. I am sure there were many employees not just at Microsoft but many other companies in corporate America who rose to the occasion. It was just what had to be done. The Microsoft human resources department, on a global scale, communicated throughout the week and kept every employee informed on what we as a company were doing and what people could do to help. It was great work ,it was impassioned work.

The events of 9/11 caused many Americans to do things just because it was the right thing to do. because it was what was needed at the time. As a country we came together because things needed to be done. Imagine what we could accomplish if we thought that way all the time. Unfortunately that is not the way things work. But in any case lets just pause and maybe, just maybe let’s imagine what could be.

A month later the season of Fall had settled in. I love fall above all other seasons. I love the changing of colors. The change in temperature to a coolness greeted with warmth in the afternoons. I looked forward to raking the leaves from underneath the large maple tree in our yard. It was kind of magical experience. On this day on October I was with my eldest son, he with his little leaf rake and me with my man rake. As we sat there under a bright blue sky a jet plane flew over head. Leaving a jet stream in its wake. then my son uttered words that caused all the blood in my veins to freeze, “Daddy, Daddy, plane fall down, plane fall down…plane fall down….”. Then I wept.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Hoffmann September 11, 2011

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Dear Tim Cook – Learn from Steve Ballmer

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Dear Mr. Cook

I am sure you are settling into your new role as Apple CEO, wondering how do you succeed a legend? I can only imagine it is a daunting task. Speaking from experience though I can say I have witnessed the good, the bad and the ugly of what can happen.  I was at Microsoft when Bill Gates decided to step down as CEO of Microsoft and handed over the reigns to his self-appointed successor, Steve Ballmer.  At the time things seemed to go so swimmingly as it was never in question who would be the successor to Steve Ballmer.  Things have worked out far differently than those of us who were around would have predicted.

I have been a witness to greatness as I had the opportunity to listen to BillG speak many times.  His ideas and vision for Microsoft and the industry always so crystal clear. As if they had been freely floating around in his mind since the day he was born. As change took place in the industry, Bill always seemed  to understand it, to grasp it and to be ahead of it.  This is not much different then Bill’s chief competitor for the top spot in tech history, your former boss Steve Jobs.  Steve seemed to understand the impact technology could have on day-to-day life and what it emotionally meant to people, and most importantly how to get there.  But these chapters are now closing and it’s time for your chapter, but let’s hope it is better than Steve’s.

When SteveB took over from Bill he was the golden boy.  He was much revered and loved in the field sales force.  Many of us considered him one of us.  Unlike you he even had the benefit that Bill would hang around for a while as Chief Software Architect.  And for a while things seemed to look like they would work out ok, or so we thought.  He was being given the opportunity to lead the future, not just of the industry but of a company that had made changes in the world, in the way we live..  But cracks in the armor were starting to show.  And that is my first bit of advice to you which is old advice, big things start small.  Both the positive and the negative.  We started to see some of the tech guru’s leave the company, most notably Paul Maritz.  Even though I revere BillG he had a circle of people around him that was his think tank. People he could turn to and have those deep discussions on the state of the industry and where it was headed.  Today I don’t know who Steve listens to these days for advice and guidance, but he has become an increasingly isolated figure.

Point two, remember the core of who you are and what makes you great.  It’s easy to look at others success and think it may be a good idea to emulate, but don’t do it at the cost of what got you to where you are.  As Microsoft grew managing growth became a paramount obsession for Steve,  He really fell under the guise of Jack Welch and the GE model, trying to apply those ideas to Microsoft.  The problem was that though it worked for GE that does not necessarily mean it was a good fit for Microsoft.  Over time the passion that was so core to Microsoft seems to have dissipated and been replaced by big corporate politics from the top to the bottom.  It has created an environment where people are more interested or fearful in doing the politically wrong things versus doing what’s right for the company.

Point three is drive the industry and don’t let it drive you.  This to me was a direct result of point two.  When I first started at Microsoft, the idea of standards and specifications were something that Microsoft was directly involved in and trying to drive a major influence in bending them to what Microsoft saw as the right direction for the industry.  It was important that Microsoft be viewed in the lead on technology.  As new start-ups and technologies have come forward Microsoft has chased these new opportunities, thinking they could catch up like they did in the past and taking their eyes off the core standards.  A case in point was HTML5.  While Microsoft was pursuing Adobe with their Silverlight Player and Smooth Streaming, Apple rightly saw that the right thing to do was support the new standards being developed for playing media files, HTML5.  Thus causing Microsoft to do yet another about-face.  This type of mistake can be blamed on product groups, but ultimately these type of visions start at the top.  Which is why your mentor was on record as saying the future is HTML5, Microsoft has seemed to stutter and fail with each new change in the industry and ultimately be viewed as a laggard.

Microsoft back in the day was always fearful of falling prey to a company that was smaller and hungrier than they were, Steve was certainly involved in a lot of those discussions.  It was an obsession of  the executive teams. However today that does seem to be exactly what is happening to them.  It has everything to do with that they forgot all about those fears and took their eye off the globe shaped ball predicting the future.  Nothing has changed in the industry.  This remains an industry where small start-ups innovate and create the next generation shifts in the technology industry.  You and I have both seen companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Flickr, Pandora, Linkedin, Dropbox etc. emerge within the last 10 years.  Some of these will grow very large and some already have, some will fail.  The only guarantee is that there are more to come, so pay close attention to who they are and where that are taking the market place.  And most importantly capitalize on it.

In conclusion Mr. Cook you have been granted an exciting challenge and opportunity at what today is the most admired company in tech.  The pipeline is solid for product delivery over the next five years.  Be true to who you are, but more importantly be true to who Apple is.  I don’t want to see you become a Steve Ballmer,  it has been painful to watch.  At the same time as I have outlined there is a lot you can learn.  The one guarantee I can make to you is history always repeats itself, but you do not need to be the one to repeat it.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann  September 7, 2011

Steve Jobs moving on

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It was not a stunning announcement but it still surprised us all when it happened. Steve Jobs was resigning as CEO of Apple. Unlike his peer, Bill Gates, not by choice, but because his health had deteriorated to a point he could no longer continue as leader of one of America’s most admired companies.  It’s hard to measure the impact Steve Jobs has had not just on technology but on popular culture.  It’s has been a journey of a young brilliant arrogant man to the top of the pack as one of the most admired and respected leader’s in the industry today.  During that time we saw a transformation from youth to mature dignitary.  He has been the an ultimate leader in technical discipline and a  marketing mega star.

When I started in the industry, back in 1991 Steve Jobs was a legendary lost soul, having been booted from the very company he helped create.  Apple at the time was led by former Pepsi exec John Sculley, while Steve was working on something called NeXT.  I did not have much insight into Steve Jobs at this point until I was part of the account team at ATT Wireless.  I worked with a partner, Accenture at the time, and we were all trying to bid on the call center business.  We needed to replace their existing system built on…NeXT.  Who used NeXT?  It was hard to believe, but according to my counterpart from Accenture, who was in the room, when it was pitched to ATT Wireless it was the single best sales job he had ever seen, delivered by none other than Steve Jobs.  Everything I ever heard about Steve Jobs always spoke to the power of his personality and when he was in a room you knew it, he was not to be ignored.  It was a force of will.

By the time I was covering ATT Wireless and heard the legendary stories, Steve had already returned to Apple.  It was one of those announcements that I am sure for anyone who loved Apple or worked for Apple was greeted with a sense of joy and relief.  Apple at the time was a company in the wilderness.  Losing market share and ceasing to do anything innovative.  It was funny early on that the first release under Steve Job’s direction was the iMac which really only introduced one things of note..lot’s of colors.  Up until then you could have any color that you wanted as long as it was beige.  I think this little fact goes unnoticed but whether by accident or design the introduction of color was important as it was recognized that the personal computer was becoming  more than just a productivity device, it was becoming a lifestyle device.  From there on the history is easy to follow as music went digital.  The web went mobile.  The PC became entertainment. All starting with a little “i” as went from iPod to iPhone to iPad.  All the time the attention to technical superiority and integrating that with the desire to be free and human.  The panache that was the computer geek gave way to the individual, regardless of the technical level of ability.  It was and remains the realization of the way technology is meant to be.

What will happen now that Steve Jobs is transitioning away from Apple. will Apple remain the same?  First the pipeline of innovation is strong with iPhone, iPad and iTV.  Not to mention the traditional sales of the iMac, Air, MacBoox etc…seems to be flourishing.  Every time I got to Starbucks I estimate that half of the laptops have the familiar Apple logo glaring at me.  I predict that in the not so distant future you could see Apple break the 10% mark in total market share for personal computers, which would be huge considering the decades it has been less than ten percent. computers.  Then there is the question of leadership, with the reigns being handed to COO Tim Cook.  In an odd way Steve’s illness has made this transition easier as Mr.  Cook has been running the company at various times while Steve took a leave of absence.  I think they are in good hands, with an experienced leader who has been very close to Steve Jobs over the last ten years, who knows the Apple culture.

As long a s Apple does not get to arrogant and continues to listen to consumers and be innovative they will move on and up just fine.  The reality is most people like Apple.  It will be a company that can reflect upon one of the great business leaders of the last hundred years and will have a legacy to move forward with.  As for Steve Jobs we can only hope for the best, though the announcement seemed to be an indicator that he is gravely ill with not much time.  He had a liver transplant which is never an easy thing to go through or a treatment with a “longer life span” as an option.  It simply buys one time, which he has made good use of.  STeve Jobs is moving to a different place in life’s long road, but many of those places on the road, he defined.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann August 30, 2011

The Fall out from HP

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Last week Hewlett-Packard made the stunning announcement that they were dropping the development of the Palm WebOS and would be spinning off their PC business.  The news was greeted rather harshly by the critics and the stock market as they have continued to batter the company since the announcement.   I cannot say I blame anyone as it seems a certain amount of ineptitude has taken place in the HP boardroom.  Why do you announce you are exiting the PC business but have no plan in place or buyer for the business?  They are killing their Tablet business only having recently launched it, not to mention they just acquired Palm a little over a year ago for $1.2 Billion.  Rather than die a slow death they have decided to immediately sentence to death the Palm, setting off a selling frenzy at Best Buy and pissing off a lot of consumers, who just bought one. HP has that look of that all too often used phrase, ” A deer in headlights”.

For starters I don’t think this is necessarily a good thing for the United States as if HP exits the PC business it is likely to go over seas, namely Asia.  I guess I am surprised they just did not follow the IBM model and create a Lenovo competitor. But if you think back in the day there were a lot of US-based PC companies (IBM, Compaq, Gateway, Dell, HP etc..).  Now e we will basically be reduced to one: Dell.  I guess in today’s world it’s not surprising as anything that requires a manufacturing base eventually ends up in Asia.  But the bigger concern with Headquarters in Asia a lot of the R&D focus will move there as well and that will have ramifications to the US down the road.  With a higher education base emerging in these markets we are at the beginning if the Asian dawn – though some would argue this has been underway for sometime, in my view it is still very early in the game of shifting global balances of power.

The second big impact will be to HP itself as it seems to be operating as a rudderless ship at the moment.  HP has been, by enterprise standards, a revolving door of executives.  First we had Carly Fiorina who drove the acquisition of Compaq.  Then we had Mark Hurd, who was doing just fine until his sexual impulses got him in trouble with a reality actress. Finally we have the German Leo Apotheker, who unless he does something drastically different soon could be the next CEO to be shown the door.  This is a company that I used to hear Steve Ballmer place above all  others in the tech industry.  The company that Microsoft should try to emulate. Not such a good idea now. What I am sure is frustrating to shareholders is this is not technology issues dragging the company down, but complete ineptitude at the top of the company.  A fundamental lack of leadership. This, in the end, will have a demoralizing effect on the employees. More troubling will be if it starts to impact customers, where HP has always had strong entrenched relationships.

The third will be Microsoft.  On one had it loses a tablet/mobile competitor in the WebOS.  But much more significantly it loses a major partner in the licensing of Windows and Office.  This is a tentative time for the Windows OS.  Though it is still early there are emerging alternative options in the market place, that are more realistic than previous competitors such as Linux.  Google’s Android is a viable option because there are applications for the platform.  Whomever takes over the HP PC business would be wise to leverage this (on the flip side they would be stupid if they did not).  The Compaq/HP relationship extends over 25 years and was  a major reason that Windows was able to rise and take its existing place in the market.  This change will bring a level of uncertainty to Microsoft’s core business.  Microsoft right now could use a bit of stability in the marketplace with its existing relationships.  HP on the flip side will have to restructure a lot of relationships now that they are exiting the PC business, from Microsoft to all the suppliers of the parts that make up the PC’s.

The long-term ramifications of this, dare I say, titanic shift in the PC business is going to be an environment where countries with manufacturing bases will enter a world where they will increasingly look to develop and patent their own technology.  With the US PC business being reduced to Dell.  Another benefactor of this, on the plus side for the US, will be Apple as its monolithic technology stack had a window to further enhance its current momentum, while the rest of the industry waits for the fog to clear.  HP,a s far as anyone can tell, is focused on competing against IBM in the services business.  But where IBM always seemed so clear, HP of recent times has appeared clumsy and unfocused in what it is attempting to do, in what it is attempting to become.

In the end handling transition in the technology sector is challenging and it requires some long-term vision to handle those challenges.  As fast as technology moves if you don’t have along term vision as to where you are headed you can carve a very bumpy path for yourself.  You end up with a lot of stat and stops and find your self changing direction and positions often, much to the confusion of the end customer.  HP fins itself in tha position today and as observers we are all left to ponder, “hey HP what are you doing?  Where are you going”.  What we seem to be getting back as answers or non answers is a deer in headlights syndrome.  The problem with the syndrome that no one ever seems to contemplate is that the deer usually dies.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann August 26, 2011

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The App Store Craze

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I was at a family event and all my nieces had a iTouch. I had never played withe the iPhone or iTouch at this point so when handed one I gave it a drive. First I ran some YouTube videos. A soccer clip of at the time Manchester United player Christiano Ronaldo. Connected to the house wi-fi it performed really well, which was an eye opener compared to previous experiences on my Windows Mobile phones, which frankly you just did not try. then with the wave of my fingers I cruised around the iTouch software. Soon I landed on what I viewed as a boring feature “The App store”, then with a simple touch if my finger a new world was opened up.  At first I could not believe how fast I was moved from one screen to the next and then all the options available to me, either for free or for purchase.  The categories available, the large number of apps available was all very impressive and very different from my previous experiences with mobile applications.

Prior to the app store developing apps for mobile devices was painful and not very profitable.  The first problem was which mobile phone did you write to?  Symbian, RIM, Microsoft, etc..Then their was the carrier issue as each carrier wanted to own the ecosystem.  I had to choose between Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint etc..it was a real pain in the ass.  Not to mention that by the time you broke it all down there was not much of a market to go after.  Then ever if you did write the app the user experience of finding the app and loading it was long and painful.  Lastly the applications you downloaded were not very good or enjoyable, largely because there were not that many available.  It led to one conclusion writing, selling and running mobile applications was for the world of mobile geeks, other than that don’t bother.  Apple solved all three problems by owning the ecosystems, providing lots of applications and making it easy for everyone to get access, find and download what they wanted to.

Now it seems everyone is playing catch up with Apple – Apple has over 500,000 applications, Google has 200,000 – 300,000 and beyond that not a whole lot of applications or excitement for the other players in the space;  Microsoft, RIM, Nokia etc..Microsoft is already discussing Windows 8 and including an app store for the OS.  One  question is how many successful markets will there be?  It’s apparent for the foreseeable future there will be two but a third?  I will be interested to see what a Windows 8 store means.  We are talking about the desktop after all and will it mimic the Android or iPhone app store with a bunch of free and low-priced apps?  This would mark a paradigm shift for the desktop as traditionally you bought apps that costs into the hundreds of dollars.    What will the Windows 8 tablet look like and will it be successful?  Another burning question are Windows developers like their counterparts in the Apple and Google world. interested in low-priced slash high volume sales?  The one thing I think Windows 8 does have riding for it, is it can be different, since it’s legacy is the desktop.  For RIM it’s harder as they are targeting just a mobile platform and thus cannot differentiate.  For RIM the future I believe is only a painful one.  Then there is Nokia.  I have yet to see or hear what their plans are – will they just consume off of the Windows 8 app store, thus ceding the whole app store revenue stream to Microsoft? It seems there can be only one here.  But that it the downside of Nokia letting Microsoft be their primary partner for the mobile OS will deprive Nokia ownership of the ecosystem.  Nokia can claim what it wants but its survival is dependent on Microsoft’s ability to deliver in spades.  More so from a sales and marketing front than a technology front.

Is there another paradigm to be explored?  Something around the corner we have not seen yet?  Without question there is, but I think sometimes we think it is something not invented yet, when many times it is something from the past yet re-hashed and improved.  The mobility phenomena will continue to evolve. We are always connected but the experience will continue ti improve as 4G technology becomes more prevalent.  Before you know it we will be up to 5G and 6G (if it is still called that).  The traditional software pricing structure of 90% margins is being torn down and that will continue as new indirect revenue models take its place.  It is just beginning in the area of mobility.  Soon you will hear of huge revenues from mobile advertising used to subsidize software development.  Ray Ozzie at Microsoft discussed this in his first memo at Microsoft.   For some it is just hard to take the plunge.

The App Store craze is here for now and how long it will be is hard to say, but how we acquire our digital delights will move away from packaged software, similar to how we download music today or stream movies.  The winners will be those who committed and as we see in Apple’s earnings calls probably has already been determined.  The key to success will be creating an experience that us simple and useful.  There still is opportunity in the areas of the cloud, in particular in small and midsize business and the enterprise.  There are companies making their imprints, such as Salesforce.Com, Amazon and Rackspace, but the game is still wide open.  It’s interesting to note in the last decade how the cutting edge of technology has moved from the ivory towers to the hands of our teenage kids and the impact it’s had on traditional tech powers.  The days of home desktop productivity software at $500 are over as the app store has created a mass market shift in how we consume our software and how we expect it perform.  There are those who can choose to take the plunge into the deep or perish in the tidal waves that follow.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann August 23, 2011